Presented at Quarry Farm Barn on October 26, 2016. Dr. Zehr is an independent Mark Twain scholar and a member of the Board of Directors of the Mark Twain Boyhood Home Foundation in Hannibal, Missouri.
While famous for the attention-getting white linen suits he donned in his later years, Mark Twain was aware of the functional value of outer coverings throughout his life. Dr. Zehr gives a survey of Sam Clemens’s wardrobe choices which underscored Twain’s sensitivity to the status value, shock value and even, in some cases, the capacity for crossing gender and social boundaries provided by garments.